Band conditions have been so abysmal that I didn’t even turn the radio on yesterday. As it turns out, too much solar maximum isn’t necessarily a good thing unless your hobby is chasing aurora. Perhaps today will be the day we escape these recent doldrums, and get back to the serious business of having fun on the radio?

Absent from the shack has meant more time spent on yardwork and the big landscaping project is finally complete. I hired a company to haul and distribute tons of decorative gravel around the property after removing endless weeds, bushes, and assorted stumps and other lawn detritus. The payoff looks really good and will hopefully be easier to maintain. Daily weed control is a young person’s game.

The weather cooperated as we enjoyed pleasant temps and sunshine for the last week or so. It looks like the cooler than usual (August) weather will thankfully hang around a little longer, though rain is predicted to move into the region over the weekend. That’s all good as we need the precipitation and I could use a short break from working outdoors.

Countdown ⁍  Just 39 more days until autumn’s arrival and I can’t wait, it’s my favorite season. There are 78 days until Halloween, not my favorite, but retailers seem to love it, especially this year when the merchandise began showing up in stores the same week as 4th of July.

And there are only 83 days until the US election. It’s been stunning to watch all the energy drain from the Cult as its leader melts down. The old adage, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”, looks to be in play here and let’s face it, even Chucky eventually ran out of rage…

Woke to 53F again this morning and it’s shaping up to be another beautiful day in the Heartland. Windows all open and it’s almost chilly in the shack. Nice! Timmy Horton’s in a big mug and puffing on Bluegill Lake in an old Savinelli Freehand with my old buddy Marshall Tucker asleep at my feet.

Today is officially the end of the dog days of summer:

The phrase “Dog Days” refers to the hottest days of summer. The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists the traditional timing of the Dog Days: the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11, coinciding with the heliacal (at sunrise) rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. The rising of Sirius does not actually affect the weather (some of our hottest and most humid days occur after August 11), but for the ancient Egyptians, Sirius appeared just before the season of the Nile’s flooding so they used the star as a “watchdog” for that event. Since its rising also coincided with a time of extreme heat, the connection with hot, sultry weather was made for all time.

I’ve been listening to the CW activity churned up by the SKCC Weekend Sprint on 40 meters. I’m a longtime member (3383T) who is more accurately, a long time dormant member. I played in the K3Y back in January but that’s about the last time I plugged in the straight key. As someone who frequently laments the lack of CW activity, I ought to do better. I’m going to make a point of spending at least an hour a week on the straight key.

For now, there’s more work to be done in the yard. I need to get a couple more stumps removed before the landscaper arrives tomorrow morning and these will be in his way. I can’t believe I ordered this work and agreed to remove them myself instead of letting him do it. A silly call on my part months ago when I scheduled the service, but now I need to just get it done and this project completed.

Maybe after one more cup…

Up before the sun and in the shack with the windows wide-open. It’s 54F here this morning with a high of 76F and sunny skies expected today. And the kicker, it’s expected to stay this way for about a week. I don’t know whose weather we’re getting, or why, but this is incredibly pleasant for August in Indiana. Whatever the anomaly, it’s more than welcome. I got the mowing done yesterday and while there is always something else that needs attention, this looks like a beautiful bonus day!

The coffee is freshly brewed and I’m watching the hounds chase the fox down the waterfall on 30 meters. The fox being the N5J operation on Jarvis. I’m casting my line in the water here too and keeping an eye on the bobber, but having already worked them on another band, the ATNO fever has subsided a little. I’d like to add them on more bands, sure, but my secret DX weapon is time. Saturday morning is no time to chase DXpeditions when the masses are off work and chasing them too. Being retired my secret weapon is the ability to operate when most are at work, or asleep…

VIDEO ⁍  Special Event LIVE From Jarvis Island on Friday 8/9/2024

ARRL CEO David Minster, NA2AA titled his most recent (September 2024 QST) Second Century editorial, Dewey Defeats Truman! a throwback reference to the exaggerated death of LoTW in the wake of the ransomware attack this summer. Dave apparently feels vindicated that there was no loss of data and who can blame him? Everyone at HQ could probably use a hug about now…

LoTW is dead and all the data is gone forever! Who doesn’t love a sensational, but completely false, headline? Did you read the posts from the systems gurus and armchair insiders? We did – in emails from panicked members. Alas, the real headline read more like, “LoTW is back on, and I uploaded my logs!” And, “The LoTW queue of 60,000 logs is now completely caught up in less than 4 days!”

I’m certain that made Dave feel better, but it warps reality a bit. An important service was offline for 50 days. Though we’ve all become accustomed to IT system downtime for maintenance and similar security events, this was a long time. Imagine your bank telling you they would be offline to deal with a security issue, and then being down two whole months. What if your power went off and didn’t come back on for 50 days? I mean there’s “downtime” and then there is downtime.

You know how when your flight has taken off and you’ve achieved cruising altitude and the pilot comes on the PA system to inform everyone of the current altitude and speed? He doesn’t do that for nothing. Heck, I don’t care, so long as they stay above the trees and the mountains I’m good. But there are nervous passengers who don’t enjoy flight. And hearing the steady voice from the cockpit assures those with white-knuckles that all is well with the plane.

ARRL members deserved that kind of reassurance during the 50 days of LoTW downtime. We didn’t get that. Instead we were fed a terse response every few weeks during the event. That wasn’t bad management, it was malfeasance. ARRL is particularly bad at this sort of transparency. In an age where we’ve come to expect rapid, online responses to these sorts of things, ARRL seems to still live in the print era where news only dribbles out once a month, in the next edition of QST magazine. We know (now) it was a ransomware attack that involved law-enforcement, but that’s no excuse for infrequent updates, even if a full explanation wasn’t permissible. Members only discovered it was a major ransomware attack from other IT security publications – not the ARRL web.

Somewhere back in our long ago the complaints seen by most members came in the form of tightly controlled ‘Letters to the Editor’ of QST magazine. In this century we’ve all become publishers of sorts, and now the arrows come from all directions and never seem to let up. The League (yes, I still call it that) has enough trouble and snarky comments on social media don’t help. But the vacuum of zero information will be filled with something. Proactive messaging could have improved this situation, but transparency and info sharing continues to be ARRL’s Achilles heel.

And while it’s wonderful that no data was lost and the system is back up and running, all systems still haven’t been recovered. Certain award services remain unavailable. An August 7th update, the first in nearly a month, said these are expected back online by August 20th.

Note ⁍  I’m an ARRL Life Member who uses LoTW exclusively for radio contact confirmation.

I got word that the Jarvis N5J operation got underway last night and first thing this morning saw that they were QRV on 17 meters. I fired up the new WSJT-X software in SuperFox mode and settled in to watch the action. Copy was easy and I observed their signal slowly build until by my 2nd cup of coffee I decided to jump into the fray.

Thirty minutes later they were in the log. 100 watts and a 17-foot ground mounted vertical was all the mojo I had available on this band today. The result was gratifying. Working them on the first full day of operation with such a modest setup is a good sign and I expect many DXers will be doing the happy dance after getting this 17th most wanted (9th in Europe) in the world into their logs.

Note ⁍  The DXpedition clearly shows the “verified” notification. I was able to copy as many as 7 reply streams at one time so any earlier reported issues with the software seems to have been corrected.

The last post was about the new SuperFox digital mode. Today I want to speculate (spout crazy notions) on where this could lead us without much effort. It seems a solid first shot at working the DQRM problem. Shaming the bad actors hasn’t done much good suggesting the DX Code hasn’t been a great method to manage behavior. Pledging allegiance to the DX Code is mostly virtue signaling, and I suspect it’s completely ignored in the seamy underbelly of amateur radio.

The fact is, parts of SuperFox or anything like it won’t make the open source crowd happy, but hell, the open source crowd likes olives on their pizza, we shouldn’t cater to what they want!

Consider though, if this same kind of thing wasn’t just being used on the DXpedition end, but was also implemented on the user (hounds) end. Imagine a system where you have to register to use FT-whatever it will be called. And that registration is secure and issued by a trusted source, like your TQSL certificate for LoTW. This would provide a confirmed identity to the SDR bots, who never stop listening to everything all at once. Without a confirmed identity, the new software wouldn’t transmit. With it, you can be identified, and if you are weighed in the balance and found wanting, a kill signal could be sent to disable your software and prevent you from transmitting.

Pure speculation and fraught with all kinds of potential problems. But before you chuck the entire notion, consider this carefully. These kinds of issues occur (mostly) because a) the planet is littered with unstable people yearning for attention, and b) the anonymity provides an unintended layer of security for these bad actors. This is true of our DQRM problem as well as everything else. Look at the lengths corporations like Google, Twitter, Facebook and others go to provide verified identities to users because total anonymity leads to chaos. If I can’t trust you are who you tell me you are, all of ham radio crumbles into dust…

Of course, I’m not suggesting this sort of Draconian lockdown would be the ideal way to play radio, but hams around the world spend millions of dollars on DXpeditions and it isn’t fair to those who follow the protocols that some anonymous idiot with a transmitter can muck it all up.

Problems ⁍  Well sure, this all has the potential to create more problems:

• The secret identifying codes wouldn't necessarily be legal on the ham bands. This might require the software to check-in online every now and then to receive an authorization token.
• Many elements of this concept probably require closed-source software to prevent unauthorized modification.
• Who gets to be trusted authorities?
• Who decides when the kill switch gets pulled?
• Etc.

This isn’t at all ideal. But consider D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, and the like. “Someone” gets to be in charge of those and you must ask permission to get your identifying “key” to use those digital modes. In the same way, “someone” would be in charge of issuing DXpedition and DX chasers “keys” to make it all work.

Of course none of this could have been imagined in 2015 when CW and Phone were the most popular modes and software was optional. In 2024 nearly all of us are using one mode, one software app. The widespread acceptance of FT-x by 80 percent or more of us means we’ve handed considerably more control of the way we play radio to “someone” else. Play by the rules, keep your nose clean, and you get to play the game. Otherwise, you’re on the outside looking in and unable to cause nearly as much havoc if you wanted.

This could prove to be one of the greatest advantages of digital over analog – or it could be the end of the hobby as we know it.

WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc5 and later includes a new mode for DXpeditions that’s been called SuperFox and is intended to dramatically improve rates and performance. Instead of sending up to five normal FT8 streams, each 50Hz wide, the SuperFox station will be capable of transmitting a full power constant-envelope signal, 1512Hz wide, sending acknowledgements to as many as nine different hounds at the same time. And instead of dividing the power by streams, each stream in this mode will receive full power out.

A tenth stream apparently could be used for general messages like QRT times or QSY frequencies, etc. This could become a useful uber feature once hams have some time to suss it all out.

This version also includes an attempt at curtailing piracy. DXpeditions almost always attract nefarious elements of our hobby, and the larger (and more expensive) the operation, the more the cretins seem to enjoy spoiling it for others. Most often in the form of pirating the call sign so that legitimate DX chasers sometimes end up working a pirate station only to later discover they never made it into the legitimate DXpedition log.

Eliminating this problem is being attempted through the use of a digital key that will be issued by authorized organizations (queue the conspiracy theorists) directly to DXpedition operators. Entering a valid digital key in the software will unlock its ability to transmit using this new mode with the authorized call sign. Receipt of legitimate contacts will be recognized on the receiving end at the time of QSO.

NOTE ⁍ only the DXpedition needs a key, not the DX chasing hounds.

As usual, the devil is in the details, and there has been a lot of chatter online about why a single DX organization (for now) is the keymaster, or that what had been open source software is now being distributed as a binary - an obvious requirement to prevent the source from being easily modified to support pirate activities. Several hams have reportedly cracked the key generation schema and say they could generate legitimate “keys”. This caused another to opine that since he was a leading expert in the field of crypto technologies he should have been consulted, but wasn’t. Sheesh.

This is only what I’ve been able to discover online and distilled into words. You should do your own due diligence, but be quick about it, the new technology will be on full-display for the upcoming Jarvis 2024 DXpedition following a successful test firing from K8R.

Specific details for Jarvis can be perused here.

For those interested in this new mode, I’d highly recommend listening to Episode 46 of The DX Mentor podcast with Ned Stearns, AA7A, who discussed SuperFox development over which he had considerable input. He also had some interesting thoughts about using AI in amateur radio. Don’t skip this one.

Just like that, and it’s time to tear another page from the calendar. Between taking time off from radio for a few weeks and dodging earth directed CME’s, my results for July trended lower. At this point in the quest ATNO’s are becoming fewer and farther between though I did add a couple this month and I filled nearly a dozen band slots, so I can’t complain. Not much anyway.

In the two years since I started fresh on collecting DX I’ve managed to work 160 entities which leads me to believe I could be hitting the wall with regards to station capability.

100 watts and a vertical only goes so far, at least at a pace that would provide a lifetime of DX in only five years. Help should be arriving in time for the Fall season. My KM3KM Mercury IIIs amplifier has been in production for a month and I expect to receive it by the end of August. Hopefully, 1000 watts and a vertical, plus the Fall DX contest season will get me to 200 by year-end.

DX Marathon ⁍  I’ve enjoyed the DX Marathon these last few years as it provides motivation to keep the DX nose to the grindstone, as well as encouraging better record-keeping. In this venture I’m really only competing with myself which is a good thing since my annual results fall into the lower third of the pack. Through the month of July, with five months remaining, my results are:

• 1,343 QSO's
• 104 Entities
• 32 Zones

Everyone starts over at “zero” on January 1st each year in this marathon. Expectations run high in January when the DX tallies like the cash register at Costco. By mid-year things begin to slow down considerably as the low-hanging DX fruit has already been worked. My score is downright anemic when compared with world-class operators like W9KNI, but it’s an improvement over last year at this point and I hope for a nice finish that will make 2024 my best DX Marathon entry to date.

The DX Marathon has been growing rapidly the last few years, and there is plenty of information available about the program if you’re interested. It’s pretty simple:

Work as many countries and CQ Zones as you can in each calendar year, regardless of the band or mode. Each country and zone counts only once, so you can concentrate on working new ones, rather than working the same ones on multiple bands and modes.

Recent videos provide a better explanation of the program, check these out if interested.

Note ⁍  While I don’t operate QRP in the Marathon quest, I have sponsored the QRP plaque for several years and intend to continue that support. Last year one of the highest overall scores was obtained by WG5G who operated in the QRP class!

It’s probably been since the late 1970’s when I last owned a battery powered, pocket-sized transistor radio. Yesterday I ordered the brand new XHDATA D-220 after having seen a review of it on John’s Tech Blog. I’m not certain I have a real use for it, it was just something I wanted – and it was under $20 on Amazon which made it mighty tempting. Sure, I’ve got endless streaming options and XM Radio in the Jeep. A ham radio friend even pointed out that I had a brand new Yaesu FT5D handheld transceiver that also covers the broadcast band, like I’d ever listen to music on that battery slurping little vampire…

It won’t ship until August 1st so this isn’t a review, just a mention of a transformative technology from my youth.

The last actual broadcast radio I purchased was The Public Radio, a slick little crowd-funded project (initially) that was an FM receiver inside a Mason Jar. It’s charm (besides being inside a jar!) is that the only controls are the off-on switch and volume. The frequency was selected by a tiny adjustment inside the container. It is intended to be exclusively for reception of a local NPR station, though the frequency could be set to anything. After having it on my desk for a few weeks I set the frequency to my wife’s favorite country music station and presented it to her. It’s been in her office ever since. I think we’ve replaced its battery once in the many years we have owned it.

I figure there’s room in my life for another radio, so in this election, I voted for a pocket-sized broadcast receiver because I’m too old to be a Spotify person. Having come of age in the 70s with Zeppelin and a transistor radio in my pocket, this should to be a hoot!

I spent the last month with the ham radio gear shut down and the feed lines disconnected. This, after hitting it a little too hard. I found myself burned out on radio and in need of a break. It’s a calibration issue. Despite having been retired for two years I guess I haven’t adjusted to the unlimited hours available in the shack. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t quit bathing and become a radio hermit. I still worked on the endless around the house to-do list, kept the lawn mowed, bought groceries, and all the things people do to keep life moving forward, but I spent every spare moment in front of the radio and eventually, that got old.

Missing from my normal routine was visiting friends, keeping up with the personal diary, trying new recipes, reading books, sitting down with Earl Grey…

I managed to replace all that with more time in the shack and became burned out in the process. This last month away from the RF was a lovely break and by the end of it, I was ready to spin the dial again. This time with hard limits. I’m permitting myself back in the shack now on a limited basis. While there was never a worry this episode would cause me to drop out of the hobby, I just want to switch off the shack light each evening anxious to return to continue the adventure the following day.

I returned to the air to find the bands in a good mood and worked a lot of DX. Europe, Japan, Australia, and several stations in the Caribbean. There were numerous band slots filled, four of them on 17 meters alone, but it was VK9DX on 30 meters that was an all-time-new-one (ATNO) for me!

Via LoTW: KP2BH, CE7GFN, VK9DX, JR6EZE, DJ5FI, R2BDR, JA2HYD, JA1IOA, SP3DOF, JA8KSF, JE2EHP, FM4LV, JA3DAZ, PA3KUS, JH8JWF, RA4FHO, JJ2HCM, SP5ELA, KL7J, HK6DOS, VK7AP, HB9HSJ, HI8S, LA8ENA

Thanks to all for the DX fun and the LoTW confirmations!

It seems we are either at solar maximum or very near. It’s an event best determined in the rear-view mirror six months after it has been passed. In any event, there should be years of good propagation and more DX ahead before we slip into the doldrums.

Some catching up seems in order. It’s been a busy month with too much work in the yard for this old retired guy. The heat wave made things miserable for several weeks, but that broke a few days ago and the last two mornings I have enjoyed coffee and 54F with the windows wide open. I’m hoping against hope this will continue. I’ve been looking forward to autumn weather since the 4th of July!

Mercury Rising ⁍ I got word about a week ago that it was my turn to order the Mercury IIIs amplifier from KM3KM. That followed a seven month wait that was actually shorter than the expected one year queue. The next step in the process is to send money (done!) and now my amplifier is being assembled and tested. I expect to receive it by the end of August and have been trying to prepare everything on this end for higher power operation.

Data Disaster ⁍ Disaster struck in the form of losing my main logging file. Yeah, I know, back-ups are critical, but in this case the file was corrupted before it was backed up. Fortunately, I managed to extract all my data from LoTW online (I had no idea that was even possible) and created a new master log file. Of course all comments, power, antenna, transceiver used, etc. – everything non essential for a valid contact was lost, but at least I didn’t have to start over from scratch.

This never used to be a problem because my logging was hit and miss with the “hit” part being on paper. In May of 2022 I decided to set my course for DXCC and began using electronic logging in earnest. I hadn’t kept many paper QSL cards so it was a complete do-over and all of it via LoTW only. I’ve never submitted a paper card for any award credit. The electronic process is much easier to navigate though I only see a 64% return using LoTW. That might be as good or better than paper cards, but I’m always disappointed when an ATNO is waiting in confirmation purgatory.

While it’s taken hours to recover I have come up with an improved method for file rotation and back-ups so the time wasn’t completely wasted. I also took the opportunity to consider and review other logging applications since there was an opportunity to begin anew. The truth was, I could find nothing superior to what I already use, MacLoggerDX. The problem with all ham radio software is that it’s developed and maintained by individuals, or at best small enterprises, and you get onboard with full-knowledge that if you live long enough, one day the developer/maintainer will either lose interest or assume room temperature and you will be forced to start over with something new anyway…

DX IS ⁍ I renewed my INDEXA membership for another year and made a small donation. This seems reasonable given the important role DX organizations play in support of our unusual and unique game of DXing. But consider that I donate money to a group who donates those funds to a DXpedition and I still have to donate a few bucks directly to that operation if I want to receive an expedited QSL after working them. Mind you, I’m not complaining about the money, but one day we really need to have a long conversation about the value of DX organizations versus direct funding of operations. Especially since the DX world is fragmenting into non-traditional forms of communication. Some DXers don’t want to fund all-digital operations while others aren’t so happy funding the kind of DXpedition where there are no boots on the ground, etc.

When you consider how in just a few years FTx has become, by far, the most popular mode used in all amateur radio, it’s reasonable to wonder why that is so. If a rock and roll band had this much rapid success many would claim they traded their souls for it. But there’s another theory, and it seems more likely than a soul swap. What if the user interface is addictive, like video games and slot machines, and making FT contacts is something akin to playing a game of whack-a-mole?

(The term “whack-a-mole” is often used colloquially to refer to a situation characterized by a series of futile, Sisyphean tasks, where the successful completion of one just yields another popping up elsewhere).

Addiction could explain the rapid paradigm shift from traditional radio contacts to a seemingly insatiable desire to exchange fragments of digital ephemera – with the added frustration that an electronic logbook can never be completely “filled”. Devotees of the mode wouldn’t accept this possible explanation of course, addicts can’t grok that they’re addicted…

Notable

• Tomorrow, July 20, is the North American QSO Party RTTY edition
• Latest updates for CY9C St. Paul Island Activation planned for August 26 - September 5, 2024
• Musical chairs... ARRL Announces Leadership Changes in the Hudson Division (wasn't this Ria's seat not long ago?)
• DX and Contest Convention August 15th, 2024 in Huntsville
• John E. Kaufmann, W1FV, of Maynard, Massachusetts became a Silent Key "after a brief illness", says KM3T, Dave. He was 72. John was a serious 80 and 160 meter op. He was a member of the Yankee Clipper Contest Club and an operator at multi-op efforts including almost 30 years at KC1XX

Quotable

“Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they’re going to light the bottom, and doesn’t get a little worried, does not fully understand the situation.”

– John Young, after being asked if he was nervous about making the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981

Potable

• LTspice® Technical Information and Guides
• New Product Spotlight: DX Engineering Logo UltrAtomic® Wall Clock
• Master the Secrets of HF Propagation with VOACAP Online - download the free VOACAP Online User's Manual (PDF) by OH6BG
• New public version available OpenTuner 0.B Release - DATV
• Transistors on NASA's Europa satellite can't handle space radiation, putting mission at risk - repair could require 'baking' the MOSFETS inside the satellite
• How Taiwan breaches censors' barriers

While there is great joy in Whoville over the return of LoTW, the ARRL hasn’t yet fully recovered from the ‘Great Hack’ of 2024. Certain key services still need to be brought back online. A message on the LoTW log-in page details those missing features and explained it like this:

The ARRL Awards System has (3) flow processes: One process is Logbook; one process is Paper Applications by Mail; and the last process bring Logbook and Paper Applications together in a Master DXCC Processing System. At present, while the Logbook program is now allowing customers to submit/complete Award applications online (this began about July 1st), the Master DXCC Processing System remains offline, therefore we are not yet able to fully complete final processing of any DXCC applications at this time. As soon as the Master DXCC Processing System is back on line, we can then finish the final processing of Paper or Logbook applications received.

Worked All States (WAS) applications, endorsement stickers and certificates are able to be processed and certificates are able to be printed and mailed, as they do not flow through the Master DXCC Processing System.

VUCC applications are being processed and completed, however certificates cannot yet be printed as we have some remaining IT matters to complete with our in-house printer used for VUCC certificates.

Please also note that as the “Online DXCC” application system is not yet operational - it too is tied to the Master DXCC Processing System currently offline.

Future updates regarding Awards processing will be posted here, and will be available from the ARRL website under the ARRL Systems Service Disruption header.

Notable

• ARRL finally confirms ransomware gang stole data in cyberattack
• Celebrating Software Defined Radio - "At Ham Radio 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the Software Defined Radio Academy (SDRA) celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Winners of the Ulrich L. Rohde Award, created in 2022 for innovative research in the field of software defined radio, were also announced..."
• The ID-52A/E PLUS Empowered with Enhanced Bluetooth® Functionality and Versatile USB Type-C™ Port. The ID-52A/E PLUS 60th Anniversary Limited Edition is also released
• Downloadable files for CW practice from 5-70 words per minute via N4LSJ
• Weekly Club Log DX Report

Quotable

“After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him… The moral: When you’re full of bull, keep your mouth shut…”

– Will Rogers

Potable

• Once popular title refreshed, Hints & Kinks for the Radio Amateur 19th Edition
• Regulator disrupts Starlink services during Tonga's ongoing communications crisis
• Historical transmitter SAQ Grimeton transmission - Alexanders-on Day 2024
• Colorado’s ham radio operators are ready for an emergency — just don’t call them amateurs
• Over 600 amateur radio enthusiasts ham it up at 1st-ever Hamcon:Zion in St. George

We do what we do in amateur radio because we can. Simple as that. It’s unhealthy to spend much time wondering why we marvel at a ham radio contact when we could more easily make a phone call. We play with radio because we can. This week I created a radio telegram. Why? Because I can. If the traffic system works properly, that message will be delivered, eventually, and my friend will likely be impressed with the result. You can send messages like this too thanks to the National Traffic System and the Radiogram Web Portal.

Quotable

“An elderly friend once told me there were four ages to life: youth, middle age, old age, and ‘You look great’”

– Robert Reich, (who turned 78 the other day)

Notable

• Watch K7AGE work K8R (American Samoa) using the new SuperFox feature of WSJT-X
• VK2/W7BRS Lord Howe Island DXpedition July 11 - August 1st 2024
• Results 2023 CQ World Wide VHF Contest along with the line scores
• Dates for the Summer North American QSO Party (NAQP) contests: NAQP RTTY on July 20, NAQP CW on August 3, NAQP SSB on August 17
• RIP: Developer of the Curtis Morse keyer chip, John G. “Jack” Curtis, K6KU, died on June 4 after a long illness. He was 87.

Potable

• Short wave – long term - “Before there was social media there was amateur, or ham radio, and it’s going to exist long after social media is just a memory.”
• Going Ham Mobile on a Bicycle
• Super long-range Wi-Fi works at a range of 1.8 miles — HaLow standard aces a real-world test despite high interference
• Maiden crew’s First Mate Rachel Burgess: ‘The girls showed how tough they were’
• Tiny $10 Raspberry Pi 5 PCie board brings low-cost, high-speed storage – the end of micro SD is nigh

Long Read

• Interesting article about the the Effects of Aging. It's worth reading not just because the water cooler talk this week has been about the 'debate', or because of the sick fetish of the American voter to lust after only fossilized political candidates. It's worth reading because our hobby is aging so rapidly...

Public Service-able

Good news and bad news for satellite grid trackers. Bad news first, the popular TEVEL satellites (1-8) will all deorbit over the next 60 days. The good news, the same organization that launched this series of birds is currently “working on a new Tevel mission that will include nine satellites”. The original Tevel mission consisted of eight satellites developed by the Herzliya Science Center in Israel, each carrying an FM transponder. The mission was launched in January 2022 aboard Falcon 9 Transporter-3, SpaceX’s third dedicated SmallSat Rideshare Program mission, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Notable

• The IARU HF World Championship occurs next weekend, beginning at 1200 UTC on Saturday, July 13 and concluding at 1159 UTC on Sunday, July 14
• The World Wide Radio Operators Foundation is pleased to announce that, effective immediately, John Golomb, N2NC, will be assuming the Director role for the CQ WW VHF Contest which will take place on July 20-21
• Don’t let go: DeSantis signs bill banning intentional balloon releases in Florida
• USB Control Box Project for IC-905 and Other CI-V Radios
• Nigel, G3TXF has posted photos from his recent visit to HAM RADIO in Friedrichshafen
• SpaceX is swiftly moving towards its goal of providing Direct to Cell services to T-Mobile customers before the end of the year.

Quotable

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

– Roald Dahl

Potable

• A century of service and signals: 100-year-old ham radio enthusiast, teacher marks milestone
• Welcome to America’s Kansas City Wide, a network of digital repeaters providing VHF/UHF coverage across the greater Kansas City area
• Next 90 Days Satellite Decays ~ Reenters
• Welcome to YAAC - "Yet Another APRS Client"
• NASA Awards SpaceX $843 Million Contract For ISS Deorbit Vehicle
• Apple has ordered a fifth season of 'For All Mankind' and greenlit a new spinoff series titled Star City

The Youth on the Air (YOTA) Camp “ham shack” has been renamed the Bob Heil, K9EID, Memorial YOTA Camp Amateur Radio Shack. Heil, 83, passed away on February 28, 2024. He was considered the man who defined the sound of live rock ‘n roll music and brought audio engineering principles into mainstream amateur radio use. He founded Heil Sound in 1966, through which he created the template for modern concert sound systems for musicians like the Grateful Dead, The Who, Joe Walsh, and Peter Frampton. Heil was also known as a mentor and generous donor to amateur radio organizations who enjoyed helping others find success in ham radio and supported Youth on the Air from the very beginning.

Notable

• Firefly Aerospace successfully launched and deployed eight satellites on Thursday morning. Included were several satellites with amateur radio interest including MESAT-1 with a 30 kHz wide V/U Transponder plus a 1k2 BPSK telemetry downlink. More details.
• MESAT-1 telemetry seen at Bochum.
• Radio amateurs will be prepared this weekend to help with communications for those in the path of Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean.
• Sony kills off Blu-ray and optical disks for consumer market — business-to-business production to continue until unprofitable.
• Will Linux’s New run0 Command Run sudo Out of Town?
• RIP: Bruce Bastian was an American computer programmer, businessperson, and philanthropist. He co-founded WordPerfect with Alan Ashton in 1978.

Quotable

“Summertime, and the living is easy…”

– Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer

Potable

• The Communicator - the bi-monthly journal of Surrey Amateur Radio Communications for July-August 2024 is now available for free [PDF] download.
• Boulder Amateur Television Club TV Repeater's REPEATER - July 2024 newsletter.
• Friedrichshafen Ham Radio Expo - Fri 28th June 2024
• Software-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to network management that enables dynamic and programmatically efficient network configuration to improve network performance and monitoring in a manner more akin to cloud computing than to traditional network management.
• Looking for adventure? My Summer Reading list is a great place to get started!

National Museum of the United States Air Force

Spent yesterday morning at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. https://t.co/MZxkQBIQzV pic.twitter.com/BXQOzBz02S

— Jeff KE9V (@stuckbit) July 4, 2024

Summer brings back memories of short-sleeves, baseball, and playing outside until the street lights came on. Fishing with my Dad was a special treat and to this day a strong whiff of gasoline transports me back to lazy days on the water with him and our difficult to start outboard boat motor. This was always a happy season when we enjoyed a respite from school, slept deeply with the windows open, napped often in the hammock, marveled at the lightning bug shows, and celebrated the 4th of July fireworks while parked in the grass at the lake.

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a land where happiness is more than just a lack of tragedy…

Quotable

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

– John F. Kennedy

Notable

• TX-Factor Episode 31 - the best all-around amateur radio video program is back with the conclusion of the QO-100 ground station build and much more.
• No Nonsense Extra Class License Study Guide by KB6NU now available.
• ARRL and Momobeam Introduce Dual-band Beam Antenna for 6 and 10
• BBS & Mail for Meshtastic - The Comms Channel
• RIP - Linux network pioneer, Larry Finger, died on June 21, 2024.

Potable

• ARDC Portal 2.0 Technical Documentation AMPR | 44net
• 2024 version of SDR# Big Book by Paolo Romani, IZ1MLL.
• Thales has unveiled the first two radios in the company’s new HF XL range of resilient high-data-rate wide-band HF radios for command posts deployed by land forces in the theater of operations.
• Is Russia readying a nuke to blow up Starlink? - US officials warn Russia could be preparing new nuclear anti-satellite weapon for possible use in Low-Earth Orbit.
• Calm Down — your phone isn’t listening to your conversations. It’s just tracking everything you type, every app you use, every website you visit, and everywhere you go in the physical world.

Ham Radio in Friedrichshafen

A few more pictures from Day 2 Ham Radio 2024 at #Friedrichshafen. A big thank you to everyone who came to say hello on @theRSGB stand and to drink our tea ☕️😀 #hamradio pic.twitter.com/NsEBQpkoTS

— Steve M1ACB (@m1acb) June 29, 2024

Joe's Folly

Here’s another step in the rapidly evolving world of FT-whatever, SuperFox WSJT. This one can send reports or RR73s to as many as nine SuperHounds simultaneously. Eureka! An entire 10 day DXpedition in only 1.1 days. I assume financial support for these operations need only be for 1/9th what would normally be donated since one contact will require so little attention?

Notable

• Hackaday coronated the Quansheng UV-K5 the "king of hackable ham radios — especially now that a second version of the all-band hardware and firmware mod has been released, not to mention a new version of the radio".
• The Archinstall 2.8.1 text-mode installer for the popular Arch Linux distribution was released today (06/26) as a hefty update introducing initial LVM support and many other improvements.
• Creators of the Discovery Dish system for weather satellite reception and hydrogen line radio astronomy have announced another delay. The crowd-sourced project is going to miss it's summer promise due to manufacturing snafus. I still have fingers crossed I will receive this equipment some day.
• The Great Plains Super Launch Conference is coming August 1-3 to Colorado Springs. Considered the premier high altitude ballooning event in North America. For over two decades, the GPSL has been bringing together the brightest and most innovative amateur balloonists from the US and abroad. Full details.
• Registration for the 2024 W9DXCC Convention, which will take place at the Marriott in Naperville, Illinois September 13 and 14, is now open. This will be the 71st W9DXCC with single track DX and Contesting topics being "offered in a classroom-like setting" on Friday. Saturday will feature yet to be named speakers, exhibits, QSL card checking, CW pileup contest and that evening a reception and banquet.

Quotable

“On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”

– Hunter S. Thompson

Viewable

• BATC CAT23 KiCAD tutorial - Mike G0MJW gives a tutorial on getting to grips with KiCAD for designing your own PCBs.
• TX Factor - To space and back - TX date 7th June 2024. The best all-around amateur radio video program is finally back in production after a long hiatus.
• This is the 2024 update of Amateur Microwave - it's easier than you think by VK3FS.
• Begali Factory Tour - by G0PNM who says, "in this video, filmed over a couple of the days, you will join me for a tour of the Begali factory, which is located in Cellatica, Brescia".

Potable

• Decoding ERMINAZ - by Daniel Estévez, EA4GPZ - ERMINAZ-1U and ERMINAZ-1V are upcoming 1P PocketQubes by AMSAT-DL that will be launched in Rocket Factory Augsburg first flight from SaxaVord (Shetland, UK) later this year, together with other PocketQubes from AMSAT-EA and Libre Space Foundation.
• Cory Doctorow: No One Is the Enshittifier of Their Own Story
• Interesting post by Heather Cox Richardson on the last time the US had a president who was totally unfit for office.
• Online newsletter archive of the UK QRP Research Group published from September 1949 is available here

Since not every noteworthy article requires a separate post, and not all topics merit 750 words of musings, I’m going to try this format for more sharing and less commentary and hopefully you will find one or two things in the stack that tickle your curiosity.

Quotable

“Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness…”

– Mark Twain

Notable

• Allen Katz, K2UYH died on June 20 surrounded by family. A global leader in EME communications for more than 40 years, he was also the longtime publisher of the '432 AND ABOVE NEWS' letter. A professor of electrical and computer engineering at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), at the time of his passing he was TCNJ’s longest-serving faculty member. Additional details available in his obituary.
• An AMSAT designed Linear Transponder Module (LTM) is scheduled to ride to orbit with MESAT-1 on a June 27th flight aboard a Firefly Alpha launch vehicle. Telemetry can be decoded using FoxTelem software.
• Field Day 2024 logs must be postmarked or submitted by Tuesday July 23, 2024. Late entries cannot be accepted. A 50-point bonus may be claimed by a group submitting their entry via web app.
• Someone asked on the IC-7610 group mailing list about options for the meters in software. A few replies included hardware options for metering about which I was unaware. Like this one, and this one. Who knew?
• WSPR Transmitters overview and comparison - ZachTek

Potable

• Straight Key Century Club Handbook is now available. It provides a handy reference of Club activities. Free PDF download.
• Stellar Sleuths: Citizen Scientists and AI Uncover Hidden Asteroids With Hubble.
• The Five-Watt QRP Movement in the US, 1968-1981 by Adrian Weiss, W0RSP
• The sun's magnetic field is about to flip. Here's what to expect.
• Walmart is switching to electronic price tags that “allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds”.

#HashTagAble

Copying the arrl field day bulletin! #arrlfieldday2024 #arrlfd2024 #rtty #teletype pic.twitter.com/hdtn6lPiRY

— Jeff G @orion3311@mastodon.social (@orion3311) June 23, 2024